These lectures serve as a primer on the science of combustion, a key field of research for developing alternative fuels and the engines that will burn them. They constitute the core of a summer school lecture program organized by Princeton’s Combustion Energy Frontier Research Center (CEFRC) and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Additional funding was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

The program connects early career scientists with seasoned researchers in the field of combustion science. The courses for the 2012 session were (1) Combustion Theory, taught by Prof. Moshe Matalon of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (2) Combustion Chemistry, taught by Prof. Michael J. Pilling of the University of Leeds, (3) Quantitative Laser Diagnostics for Combustion Chemistry and Propulsion, taught by Prof. Ronald K. Hanson of Stanford University and (4) Computational Turbulent Combustion, taught by Prof. Thierry Poinsot of the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse, CNRS.

The CEFRC is directed by Chung K. Law, Robert H. Goddard Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University.